Barge P305 tragedy: Mumbai police to use DNA samples to identify bodies

The Mumbai police have sent out teams to collect DNA samples from the parents and children of the crew members who died in the Barge P305 drowning incident. The incident had been caused by Cyclone Tauktae. The DNA is being collected to identify the bodies recovered from the sea.

Mumbai police to collect DNA samples of relatives to identify bodies of Barge P305 drowning incident

The Indian Coast Guard and Navy collected 71 dead bodies from the sea. These bodies were kept for identification at the JJ Hospital mortuary. 68 of these bodies were identified and handed over to the families of the crew members. Eight bodies are still said to be missing as per the Mumbai police. The Raigad police also handed 8 bodies, which are kept at the JJ Hospital mortuary for identification.

3 arrested, 188 rescued during the drowning incident 

Some of the relatives of the missing crew members went to Mumbai and the samples collected by the police did not match with DNAs of the dead bodies since they were the distant relatives of the crew members. The Mumbai Police teams for further DNA collection will be going to Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal and other places to collect the samples for the identification process. Three people from the Pappa Management were also arrested for the drowning incident. Two of these were technical staff, and one is the Managing Director. 188 people had been recused from the Barge P305.

Incident caused by an error in judgement or a misunderstanding?

The Barge P305 had broken free of its anchor on May 16. As per reports, the ONGC had activated the emergency response system due to a weather warning. It was Captain Balwinder Singh who was reportedly blamed for the incident. Four other vessels had also gone adrift during Cyclone Tauktae, along with Barge P305, the ONGC vessel. The captain reportedly made an error in judgement or misunderstood the warning for a cyclonic storm being a tropical storm. An FIR was registered against Barge P305 Captain Rakesh Ballav & others for putting the lives of workers at stake during the cyclone. It was registered under 304(2), 338, 34 IPC at Yellowgate Police Station on the complaint of a barge engineer of P305. 

(IMAGE: PTI)